monetary policy

The biggest takeaway from the latest Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting was the reduction in the ‘normal’ rate of unemployment from the 5.2-5.5% range to a 5.0-5.2% range. While the Fed did remove its ‘patient’ language regarding…

As the Federal Reserve prepares for its next open market committee meeting and statement, I want to take a look at what US data are saying about the US economy. The main focus here is going to be the underlying pace of the US economy and…

One thing to keep in mind regarding both politics and shares in Europe is that upgrades to the growth outlook are coming and more should be expected. I see Germany doing particularly well given the decline in the euro. This is positive for…

This post is a riff on a Paul Krugman post he titled “Partying Like It’s 1995”. I cam across Krugman’s post via Stephen WIlliamson, who makes some valid points about the Fed’s raising rates in 1994 that bear noting.

Tiger 5 - Grexit is inevitable

Bill Gross and David Rosenberg are two smart investors who represent the dichotomy in markets right now. Rosenberg doesn't see the Fed hiking rates until 2016, while Bill Gross points to June (link here). Which side of this debate you take…

In the last post at Credit Writedowns Pro on jobs, I promised to talk about currency issues but I didn't! here are two issues then: the increasing current account surplus in Germany and the strong dollar's effect on China. On Germany,…

Today, we got the latest jobs report from the US. And the data were mostly good, with non-farm payrolls expanding by 295,000 and the unemployment rate falling to 5.5%. The big takeaway from the jobs report was not that job growth is so…

I want to riff off a David Beckworth post in thinking about the problem in Europe and extend the discussion with some comments on the meltdown in Greece. The gist of what I intend to say is that the eurozone, as constructed, can never work…

Continuing where I left off last week, I am going to emphasize here that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise US interest rates unless the US economy slows materially. Meanwhile, the economic and market fundamentals are moving in the…